Plans for the Grand Trunk Railway Shop are starting to move along.
Monday night, the Ad-Hoc Grand Trunk Renewal committee met for the first time in 2024 and approved a 120-day work plan.
“In January, we’re really working through some of the background,” Committee Chair Dan Mathieson explained. “In February we’ll look at the draft vision and development principles … and we'll start to lay out some business case questions of important things that we're going to want to take into consideration.”
Over 2024, Mathieson and the committee will work on the business case of the project, developing partners and partnership models, a phasing plan, infrastructure work, and a financial analysis.
It will also investigate community impacts and implications.
With that done, by 2025 Mathieson hopes to have partners in place, a business case implemented, and early work started to demonstrate progress.
Melanie Hare, chair of the vision, planning, and architecture working group, presented the vision process and community engagement strategy that will carry the committee through the next six months.
In March and April, two events will be planned with the themes of “Refresh” and “Inspiration” respectively. The events are meant to synthesize what has been done up to this point and relaunch the project for the public.
In January and February, prep work for the launch of a section on Engage Stratford will be done. From there into the spring and early summer, engagement activities will be conducted by the communications branch of the committee.
On Engage Stratford there will be one place where all the information on the Grand Trunk project will be located.
All the while regular reports will be provided to council. A draft vision is planned for April, with a final vision ready by June or July.
From there, the actual work realizing that vision will begin.
Jim Archibald, the consulting technical engineer with the City of Stratford, also passed around a draft site map with a proposed layout for the entire site.
He stressed that the work that has been done up to this point has been “preparatory.” It is work that would have needed to be done regardless of how the site will be developed in the future.
As a project with many unknowns, the work that has been done up to this point was to remove some of those.
He gave the example of the roof and removing the asbestos.
“Whether the building stayed and was restored or whether it was demolished, that roof had to come off,” Archibald said. “So the city chose to manage that itself, eliminate that environmental risk … and it really was a very positive experience. Because when that roof came off, and the steel trusses were all sandblasted, that structure is pretty much the way it was in 1910. There was no deterioration.”
When asked by the committee about how much freedom it has to make suggestions or changes, Archibald said that this is the time to discuss that.
“Everything is on the table at this point,” Archibald said. He also pointed out that pedestrian walkways, bike paths, and walking trails are yet to be determined.
One area of note in the map is the new section for the University of Waterloo, currently occupied by the YMCA.
The University of Waterloo is considering a residence in the block on the current YMCA land. There has been ongoing liaison work but Archibald said that the school has its own administrative process and he does not have further updates for the committee.
The YMCA is interested in having all of its facilities within the existing historic structure, though it is reviewing its plans. At one point, Archibald said, it was considering being partially located in the site, due to the unknowns.
